Lyrielle the Coming Tide
|image = Lyrielle.jpg |image-size = 295px |image-caption = |Created By= Karma |status= Deceased |Gender=Female |Age= 4000 |Species= Goddess |Position= Goddess of the Ocean |affiliation = Merkind, Pirates, Treasure Island}}Lyrielle was the cantankerous and solitary former goddess of the oceans, the Coming Tide. She did not often seek the companionship of other gods within the Pantheon and loathed any of them who dared to encroach upon her maritime domain without permission. She had one demigod daughter, Ursula, whom she hid within the ocean despite her own distaste for the being she saw only as a monstrosity. She called both the Merkind and the Pirates her own, however, and despite causing an upheaval that caused deep rifts to form within the Pantheon and cost Adora the Bleeding Heart her godhood, she gave her life in an effort to save those she loved at a time when it mattered most. Before the Blight took her, Lyrielle, with the help of the Forebearer, gave her body to form the Sea of Lyrielle to house her displaced Merkind and her power to safeguard Treasure Island so that the Pirate Kingdom would always have their sacred island. Creation Lyrielle the Coming Tide was one of the first gods created by the Source and the Forebearer. From the very beginning, she was not fond of her siblings or their constant bickering over who had the right to create what part of this new world they were crafting. She was relieved when the Source and the Forebearer declared that the gods would have to choose a domain and chose for herself the Maritanis. Lyrielle was very possessive of the Oceans, and though there were areas where her domain and those of other gods overlapped slightly, she took great offense to any god or goddess who dared to meddle in the Maritanis without her express permission. Destructive riptides, maelstroms, and tidal waves were the usual results of her fits of temper. The Fae Lyrielle played no part in the creation of the Fae, nor did she show much favor to them, either. When the Fae attempted to meddle in the oceans with their magic, she would answer with havoc and destruction. When war came to the Pantheon, Lyrielle left the sanctity of the oceans to fight alongside the Pantheon only because of her love and respect for the Source. She was relieved when the war finally came to an end and she was allowed to return home. She swore then that she would never leave her domain to fight another being's war again. The Merkind & The Pirates Lyrielle eventually grew lonely living in the Maritanis with none but the ocean creatures to keep her company, and so she created a new semi-humanoid species that she would consider hers and hers alone, the Merkind. The first of the Merkind was a male named Aegaeon. Lyrielle found him to be quite pleasing and though other Merkind soon followed, Aegaeon held a special place in her heart. Soon, she could deny her feelings for him no longer and took him as her lover. Though Demigods were expressly forbidden by the Pantheon, Lyrielle found herself with child not long afterwards and could not part with a being that sprang from her love for Aegaeon. However, when at last she gave birth, the child was a monstrosity. It did not have the grace and beauty of the merkind but was instead a tentacled beast that Lyrielle quickly came to despise. Seeing what ugliness had been born of their love, Lyrielle could no longer gaze upon Aegaeon and sent him away to reside with the rest of the Merkind. Because of his once lauded place at her side, Aegaeon was named the first king of the Merkind. Though Lyrielle had stopped loving him, he had never stopped loving her and feared that she would only grow more bitter and lonely without him. To prevent this, he made a promise to her that one of his children would serve her as a priestess, and that every subsequent generation of the royal family would do the same. In gratitude, Lyrielle gave him the magically enhanced Trident that would become a symbol of the King of the Merkind. For many generations, the Merkind were the only 'children' of the Coming Tide, but after the Fae were defeated and Humanity followed, Lyrielle proved to be more receptive to their prayers and pleas. Because the Humans lacked magic, they did not attempt to meddle in her affairs, but instead prayed to her for assistance: to bring fish into their nets, to calm the waves, to guide their ships, and soon enough Lyrielle had decided to accept some of the Humans as her followers. These would later come to be known as the Pirates. Lyrielle was well aware of the animosity that existed between the Merkind and the Pirates. Though she made half-hearted attempts to see the two groups put aside their differences, in truth she found their constant battles for her favor to be flattering. So long as neither group completely destroyed the other, she had no interest to bringing peace to them seas. The Sanctuary & Adora the Bleeding Heart Adora the Bleeding Heart was a lesser goddess who ruled over the domains of Mercy and Compassion. Though it was widely known throughout the Pantheon that Lyrielle did not tolerate the meddling of other gods within her domain, she could not look the other way was the Pirates and Merkind continued their bloody feud. Finally, in an effort to bring peace to them, she cgivereated an island in the Maritanis with her magic and called it the 'The Sanctuary'. On the Sanctuary, no act of violence, magical or physical, could be perpetrated so as to provide the Merkind and the Pirates with a common ground on which they could interact in peace. When Lyrielle learned of what Adora had done, she was furious and took her grievances to the Council of Twelve, or the first Twelve deities in the Pantheon who enforced the one law that held the Pantheon in check. No god could meddle in another god's domain. Lyrielle made a strong argument against the island and though the trial split the Pantheon and strained the loyalties of the gods, ultimately Adora was found guilty, stripped of her powers, and exiled from the Pantheon for all time. Lyrielle returned triumphant to her ocean and rarely, if ever, sough the companionship of the other gods again. The Blight In the beginning, Lyrielle thought the Blight would remain a problem for the land alone. Though Caelum had fallen, Lyrielle's oceans appeared to be fine and her self-imposed exile had kept her disconnected from the rest of the gods. She loved Olwyn and respected some of her siblings, but she did not mourn them enough to leave her oceans for more than a short period of time. It was only when the Blight began to infiltrate the seas that Lyrielle took notice of what a threat it truly was. By then, it was nearly too late. Her own monstrous daughter had been preying upon the fears of the Merkind to feed her own sick powers and the quest to crown a new pirate king was becoming all but impossible with the dangers that stalked the ships of the heirs. Though Lyrielle had finally recognized the severity of the threat, her awareness came too late. She made attempts to repair the relations between Merkind and Pirate, hoping that if they could unite and fight together that the oceans would not be lost...but centuries of fueling the feud between the two cultures could not be undone in a matter of weeks, not even by the Coming Tide herself. Unable to even stabilize one of the societies, with the Pirates all vying for the unoccupied pirate throne, and the Merkind society fracturing under the weight of their caste system, Lyrielle attempted to find a way to combat the Blight herself. Death Inexplicably and without warning of any kind, the Blight suddenly seemed to turn its full force upon the oceans at once. All manner of sea creatures rose from the depths infected by the Blight and transformed into nightmarish creatures that were attacking and killing without mercy both in the sea and on land. Though Lyrielle suspected that they were herding the Pirates, the Merkind, and herself into a specific area, she could do nothing but follow in the hopes that through her presence and with whatever power remained to her, she might be able to save some of her children from the damnation of the Blight. Once she had arrived where the Blight seemed to want her, an inlet off of the Southern coast of Solhara, she was greeted by a black knight who attempted to shoot her with a Blighted arrow. Lyrielle made every effort to avoid the shot, first erecting a wall of water that should slow the arrow's speed and perhaps divert it from its intended target, her heart. But the arrow as powered by more than just a man's strength and was coated with more than just the Blight, for it had an extra bit of magic from the one who had once been Adora the Bleeding Heart and was now known only as Maleficent, goddess of vengeance. Though Lyrielle was able to avoid a death blow, she was struck in the thigh and the Blight began to consume her. Lyrielle fought the infection for as long as she could, seeking out the Forebearer's assistance in helping her to safeguard her most treasured creations from complete destruction when she died. With his help, she sacrificed what remained of her power to safeguard Treasure Island from the Blight by placing it slightly out of Time. In this way, the Blight would forever be kept at the cusp of invading the island but would not be able to breech the time barrier for as long as her sacrificed power could last. Additionally, she gave up her body and her soul to create the Sea of Lyrielle, a large body of saltwater North of Caerleon and between Calladahn and Dokrayth in which all of the surviving and uninfected Merkind in the Maritanis (as well as the city of Mahrielle) were magically relocated. These things achieved...she died with nothing remaining to be taken by the Soul Reaper or returned to the Essence. It is believed that before she died, she name her High Priestess, the Princess Arista, as her successor, creating a new Coming Tide and ensuring that when the Blight was defeated the oceans could one day be restored.